#in its heyday anyway

[memorydragon]

Yeah, I need to play a happier jrpg next...

[lightningzbolt]

Sims 2 CC Mega Post

I say 'mega' but there really isn't a whole lot, I just didn't wanna split it up. Anyway, yeah, I mostly and normally and prefer to make Sims 4 stuff, but I made some Sims 2 stuff for me last year and this and I figured, may as well share it. Most of these require outside meshes so keep that in mind, Sims 2 CC downloading is a bloody nightmare.

Alex Skin

So I made a custom skin with tattoos for Alex as it seemed simple enough to do. Ain't gonna look perfect, but it looks fine from a distance, same resources I used for my Sims 4 versions, so I did vector the rose and skull. I based the skin off these default replacements. You don't NEED these, but they make it so that everyone matches. Yes that site requires an account and login, it's NSFW, it has body hair and works with nudity. Because obviously I play with mods like that. I made the skin look right for Fit/Thin/Fat but I didn't bother with any age but adult nor did I bother with female, because, idc. I THINK this is Alex's hair mesh, but idfk, I have so many that look like this.

It also works in Castaway Stories, as does all of these, because I used them in it too. :> That made Alex the palest guy on the island as all the skin tones in Castaway Stories were shifted to one tone darker per. I manually put my replacement skin in that too, but I didn't have the darkest, so no body hair to them.

Streaked Jack Hair

You need this mesh to make this work. I made this for myself as I didn't really like anything else I had for him, and this is Sims 2, so I went with earlier hair, and I liked how this mesh looked. Loosely based on like this hair. I didn't bother with other ages beyond adult again. I would have if I decided to de-age him and send him to university, but I did that with Otto instead.

Again also works in Castaway Stories, as I used it, again. It's easy to import Sim's faces from 2 into the stories games.

Awsten Tricolor Hair

Awsten Red Hair

You need this mesh to make this work. The bright green in that is also great and I used that for him at first. These are his eyes too, or rather his right eye. No screenshots of the red hair, but it's just a bright plain red in case you prefer it. I made this hair as it looked okay with the colors kind of being randomly spread around the mesh. This is his outfit btw. Again only works with adult as far as I'm aware.

BONER Shirt

R&R Shirt

NoRegRetsShirt

JALEXShirt

BMTHShirt1

BMTHShirt2

BMTHShirt3

BMTHShirt4

You need this mesh to make these work. All of these are Everyday fashion only by account of only the Everyday category having the option for separates and these are all tops. Don't ask me what pants I use, I have so many downloaded, but these work with all of them.

As it turns out I didn't take screenshots of all of these ingame, but maybe these help with that.

PTV Hoodie

DropDead Hoodie

You need this mesh for the PTV hoodie. I don't THINK the DD hoodie needs anything external, I compared it to a vanilla mesh and it seemed to line up. I don't know, I made it last December and I didn't log everything I did. Like the shirts above, Everyday category only as they are tops.

As a bonus, here's some misc Sims 2 screenshots to hit the image limit, including this stuff and with no context to my game. I know most people on modern computers play with The Ultimate Collection, but I installed it via discs, and a few ISOs as I didn't feel like spending $30+ for a few missing stuff packs on eBay. :) Pretty sure those ISOs are why my game is British and I have to always manually set the clock and a few other small things every time I load it. Not a big deal to me, just felt I'd mention for clarity. Castaway Stories is from an ISO too as have you SEEN those prices on eBay?! I have Sims 3 on Disc too, 100%, never made any CC for it tho. I love how Sims 2 was out at the peak of, ahem, mid to late 2000s culture so a lot of CC for it is of it's time in the best possible way. I kept this theme going with adding in custom music that ONLY existed from before 2009 (so 2008 is my cut-off date) and it's fun only hearing music of the era ingame. :) I DID make stuff for Sims 1 too years ago but I don't know how I even really did it so idk how to make more and also I don't care that much. I wanted to try playing with Alex and Jack in Sims 1 too but I kept getting fucked up files that didn't work or look right and I didn't know what I needed to do to make it right and I didn't wanna waste more time than I already did trying to make their faces. I do have semi-not ugly faces and outfits for a couple others tho.

Oh yeah, all this stuff is made in the Body Shop and GIMP for textures.

Whole SimFileShare Folder

[cutesilyo]

i dont think the current pjo fandom knows how big thalico was as a ship back then

[newspecies]

i always feel the need to clarify because i dont like being misinterpreted. so im doing that. i understand being disappointed, the trailer was clearly bait and two hours in this stream has nothing to do with half life. so i do get it! but i think people complaining IN CHAT need to like. leave. go complain somewhere else. chats not your tumblr blog

[acquaintedwithrask]

I'm watching Gravity Falls for the first time and finally understanding why it 1) produced so many outstanding memes and 2) why tumblr lost its collective shit about it for like 4 years

[syn4k]

I’ve been showing some of my friends your Mianite liveblogs and it’s nostalgic bc my friends and I all met via Mianite back in 2014, it’s just nice to see people discovering and liking such an old series. Glad ur having a blast! You would’ve loved it live in 2014

hi anon!! glad you're enjoying me enjoying this series!

i've been having the absolute time of my life going into mianite blind with my only context being that i vaguely recognized who captainsparklez is and that the series was centered around three gods. i got into hermitcraft in 2019 and empires smp in late 2022 and honestly vibes-wise mianite has aged incredibly well in comparison, especially for a series made in 2014, the year i downloaded Minecraft. it all just feels very familiar despite this being my first time watching it yknow?

i've also really enjoyed getting into a series that has a much smaller fandom than what i'm used to (there's like seven people here on tumblr who regularly post about mianite and i only found ~370 fics under its fandom tag on ao3 orz)! i've been liveblogging watching this to my priv discord server at the same time and two of my other friends have been there to provide context or go "oh yeah that's a thing that happens and it's fucking insane" and like. dude its awesome

im glad this is giving you and your friends some nostalgia! and don't worry, s2 has close to a hundred episodes in it from what i can tell so i'll probably be going for a while

[muirneach]

in my hunt for information on my university’s hockey history um. well for some reason our lacklustre team is relevant enough for an article on ice hockey fandom wiki??

[myothertardisisonthemun]

If you've got a moment to help us out by writing, it helps to be specific. There's a lot of details in the links here, but in short

1 Reduction of the space from over 15,000m2 of space to about 6000m2, due to removal of internal levels and new back of house areas.

2 Loss of the carefully restored engine room, which was used to host the live steam engine display

2 Loss of the postmodern facade, a great example of a rapidly disappearing era of australian architecture.

4 Changing the Wran building from an open area to closed corridors, ruining the viewing area of the Boulton and Watt engine in the process.

A quick comment, clearly objecting, which falls along the same lines as what the expert criticism is saying really helps.

Hi.

I'm going to break my very strict format for once because I need your help. For the past 9 years, the irl human behind this blog has been involved in the effort to save a museum from incompetent and money hungry executives.

The museum is filled with precious objects, telling the story of the history of technology, and how it relates to art and society.

Many of these are objects are large, but delicate and have been in place for over 30 years.

No one within the museum's community trusts the CEO, who was appointed by a hostile former government, and prefers renting out museum spaces for business functions over educating the public.

In a few days, the museum is set to close down for renovations. Yet none of the staff or volunteers have been given any clear details about these plans. All we know is displays which have inspired generations will be torn down, likely never to be restored.

We have a petition asking the new government to step in and stop the closure:

If you could sign this, you'd be doing the human behind this blog a massive favour.

[stardustedknuckles]

Do you like the mighty Nein? Do you like arcane's art style? Do you like supporting your local fanartists, some of whom are freelancers who make money off what they do but who are too shy to actually promote that they provide services in exchange for money?

Ahem.

Anyway.

Khalliys wants to draw m9 stuff in the style of arcane and said, and I quote, "hold me hostage to do it." which I'm happy to do. However. She's also struggling with the feeling of only being able to draw what she wants and making 0 dollars doing her actual freelance work.

So since she's struggling to promote herself, I'm gonna. If you'd like to have a hand in encouraging her to draw beauyasha and assorted m9 stuff in arcane style, here's the tip jar.

And it's been a while since beauyasha was in its heyday, so here are some works by her that you might know:

Hit her up!

[lizardsfromspace]

Do you ever get kind of interested in a subject where nothing weird has happened yet but you know something weird is going to happen?

Anyway, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. It was originally a upscale resort community, and also still is: it's where rich people from Chicago kept their lake houses, and maybe still do. Its heyday was in the early to mid 20th century, where its status as a vacation destination was so set that Hugh Hefner even put the first ever "Playboy Resort" there. I haven't been there myself, so I may be wrong, but it doesn't give me, like, Pigeon Forge or Niagara Falls energy. The list of attractions online seems to be spas and parks and a few theaters.

But Lake Geneva is more famous now for its most famous son, Gary Gygax. Over the course frigid Wisconsin winters, he and several wargaming friends who didn't become famous developed tactical wargaming into the game Dungeons & Dragons in the early 1970s. He also began hosting a small gaming meetup in Lake Geneva, later called Gen Con, which outgrew the town by the late 1970s.

As I understand it, Lake Geneva didn't really embrace its status as the Birthplace of Dungeons and Dragons. When Gygax died, there were fan-funded tributes here and there, and fans created a new convention in his honor called Gary Con where they played games from his time at TSR, but D&D was still a niche hobby and not the thing you define a rich people resort town around.

Then, whoops, shows like Critical Role turned D&D into one of the most popular entertainment properties in the world! Now there's D&D-themed events popping up all over the place. Some of this is normal, like efforts to fund a more prominent memorial for Gary Gygax, and a Dragon Days Fantasy Festival. But some are going further. Because there are now at least two proposals to create immersive, D&D-themed LARP experiences in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, population 8,227

One is a large themed restaurant/bar/wedding venue (?) called the Griffin and Gargoyle, which is supposedly opening in 2024, though all the art is concept art and they're still looking for investors.

The other one is Giantlands, the proposed theme park where the tickets will be NFTs, based on a game no one's heard of developed by the son of Gary Gygax by a company that legally can't call itself TSR anymore, but tried anyway before rebranding as Wonderfilled, and who also tried to make old Gygax games even more racist? I can't even begin to explain this. I think they got dunked on years ago but they were still hyping up its Lake Geneva theme park that's definitely going to exist this week (this is from August 11th)

What's incredible to me here is that they're boasting that their LARP theme park will be from the makers of Evermore Park. Nothing says quality in immersive fantasy roleplaying parks like someone whose main claim to fame is making that other one that failed. Wonder how many real tombstones and haunted dolls they'll buy this time. And this one appears to have fighting arena

I seriously doubt these are the only two pitches. Everyone with too much money and a love for theme parks feels the little voice in their head saying they can do the Star Wars Hotel right. I think what gets me here is, nobody would put anything like this in Lake Geneva otherwise. It's small, it's located in Wisconsin so it'd have to be seasonal, and it's less than two hours away from Wisconsin Dells - an entire town of kitschy roadside attractions - and even closer to Chicago, which is Chicago. Its tourism niche is beaches and homes around a scenic lake. The only reason to place anything there would be to honor Gary Gygax, and uh, I don't think the younger people who got into D&D with 5E really care about him, or even necessarily know who he is. Gary Con and most Gygax-themed events are for old-school gamers, not the Critical Role crowd. And they especially don't care about whatever Giantlands is. Giantlands as a game is so old-school there isn't even a PDF of the book, it's physical only. They want to build a full theme park around a game you can't even buy on DrivethruRPG. Anyway I hope all this open bc it would be funny

[androdragynous]

EFIT THANK YOU ANON ITS AREA 50.5 BY AKRIL15!!!

hi help me find a game for my friend . ANY information about it would be great, we're pretty sure it doesn't exist online any more but I am a miracle worker. anyways

The Game As Remembered By Fusgia:

point and click 2d DeviantArt game of someone's OC / original character, played as a puma / cougar / mountain lion lab experiment with human hands. Goal was to escape / get out of the lab. Plot is barely remembered but there was a globe you can click on and spin and the puma points at a spot to say they could go there / visit. When you get out of the lab you are in a house with a bed overlooking a window

this reddit thread appears to be describing the same game (copied below the break for search indexing), but hasn't had a successful find yet

If you know ANYTHING about this game or the creator, or (miracle upon miracle) you're the creator, please get in touch!! Shares are very welcome!! Kiss

[Browser][2010s] DeviantArt flash game where a big cat must escape an underground lab that has a minor twist ending

EDIT: Realized that my initial estimate of the early to mid 2010s was a few years too late to be correct. My only excuse is that I'm stupid.

Platform(s): Browser

Genre: Point and click. It could possibly be categorized further as an escape the room game.

Estimated year of release: Considering that I played it during or a bit after DeviantArt's heyday, I think it's safe to say that it was at some point in the late 2000s to early 2010s.

Graphics/art style: It was 2d and, if I'm recalling it correctly, had a "yeah I saw Disney movies growing up and now I draw animals in a similar way" style to it.

Notable characters: The main character. They were a puma/cougar/mountain lion, or at the very least a big cat with the same sort of coloration. The big thing about the character was that they had human hands. No, I'm not talking about an anthro character that just happened to have extremely human-looking hands. I mean like a full on quadruped but the front paws were just hands.

Notable gameplay mechanics: I don't think it was super unique mechanically for an escape/point-and-click game. The only weird thing about it came from the fact that the main character could use their hands to interact with the environment rather than the gameplay itself.

Other details:

-The main character is a genetic experiment who, after waiting for the scientist who was either responsible for them or bonded with them to return for a long time, finally decides to escape the underground lab they are being kept in.

-Not sure how right this is, but I want to say that the puma and main scientist were both female. There was also at least one other scientist mentioned that was male.

-The underground lab was basically one big room.

-The game ends with the main character escaping the lab and being found by the side of the road. We then cut to a news report on the character and see that rather than humans, the world is populated by anthropomorphic animals. The main character wasn't an experiment in splicing human and animal genes, but in splicing together anthro and regular animals.

[miss-anachronism]

I posted something yesterday throwing my hat into the ring of Merlin and Valen relationships, and people seemed to like it! These guys are best buds to me, im glad yall see it too. It inspired me to write a little drabble, so here ya go <3 this is Valen and my (fem) Merlin, so it gets kinda specific at parts lol

…

It’s been a long day.

And as much as Valen wishes it were the easier type of long day: boring and uneventful, where he has to drag himself from task to task; it was quite the opposite. Exhilarating, exhausting, and deadly; now he was sinking into a sofa chair in the Mystical house, nursing a spiked drink and a sprained ankle.

It wasn’t even a mishap- he’d launched the attack perfectly, but that godforsaken golem had grabbed his leg at the last moment and slammed him back down into the ground. Lucius said he was lucky to have avoided a concussion. But what does Lucius know, anyway.

All this to say, the entire ordeal has left him grumpy and secluded. He’s tucked into the library, where the din of the bar can’t touch his slowly receding headache. It’s lovely in here, quiet and serene, fresh air drifting through the large open windows on the south wall. The smell of old books mingles nicely with the outside breeze, stopping just shy of being overwhelming. He would have never thought himself a library person; the one in Holistone was lackluster. But Merlin, as she often did, had flipped his conceptions upside down, and provided Valen one of his favourite spaces in her impressive library.

It’s a little ridiculous to expect privacy and solitude from a house that isn’t your own, especially one housing at least five others, but Valen still finds his every muscle tensing when he hears the library door open and close with a soft click.

He exhales slowly through his teeth, trying not to make his disappointment too obvious. He sends his farewells to his peaceful rest, and a quick prayer that whomever has entered isn’t in a talkative mood. He really doesn’t feel up to playing up the charm.

The soft pattering on the floor and the long exhale that come from behind him, however, chases those fears away. The momentary panic slips from Valen’s body, and he glances to the side, grinning when a green, eerie eye catches his gaze.

Merlin grins back at him, though she looks just as tired as he feels. “Hey, sorry. I know you’re hurt, but it’s winding down out there, and I wanted to do some research before I turn in. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” Valen chuckles, “It’s your home.”

“Well, yes, but you’re my guest. And if you want me to shut up and leave you alone, say the word and I’ll be gone, no harm no foul.”

“It’s alright, Merlin,” he confirms, slightly surprised that he doesn’t even need to lie, “your company is appreciated.”

She grins at him and sets her own drink down on the small coffee table, and pulls another chair up. “Thanks, Val. I’ll keep it down, promise.”

She’s true to her word, shuffling through a few eclectically stacked books around the floor of the library before settling with three in hand. She puts the biggest one between them, and opens it up to reveal a collection of beautiful woodcuts, depicting various temples across the globe.

Valen lets out a low whistle and leans in, watching as she flips through a few illustrations, and then spins the book around to show him a full two-page print. It takes him a moment to recognize.

“The Moon Temple?”

Merlin nods, her eyes never leaving the paper. “Back in its heyday. We were talking about it, and Dolly mentioned that I should have an old book of prints in here somewhere. I’m lucky I found it so quickly.”

“How old is this book?”

“Four hundred years, give or take.”

Valen half gasps and half laughs, staring at the book in wonder. He’s shocked Merlin even has the balls to touch the thing, let alone open it.

“I can’t believe you just have ancient scripture lying around.”

“Hey, this is far from ancient,” she teases, glancing up to wrinkle her nose at him.

“You’re right, you’re right. It doesnt hold a candle to the oldest artifact in this room: you.”

Merlin sticks her tongue out at him, and Valen returns in kind, before they both return to the book.

The Moon God had been dead for a thousand years or so before this print was made, so the Temple isn’t exactly in perfect condition. Still, it’s a far cry from the decrepit ruins that it’s in today. Beautiful pillars surrounding the pouring, majestic fountains, each flaw and imperfection dutifully recorded… Valen finds himself being drawn in by the skilled execution of the print itself, scanning over the evenly spaces hatching and intricate detailing in the stonework, the water, the attention to values… it’s a beautiful recreation. Valen can even make out the carvings on the pillars themselves.

There’s a little blurb of writing at the bottom of the page, in a language Valen can’t identify. He reaches out to tap at it, stopping just shy of actually touching the book.

“Can you read this?”

Merlin hums in assent. Instead of flipping the book back around to face herself, she stands and moves over to Valen’s side of the table, kneeling next to his chair.

“It’s not much. ‘The Moon Temple, for the greatness and majesty of Nakalig the many-faced…. Cast a moonstone into the divine spring… a chance for divine lunar enlightenment…’ yeah, we know all this already.”

“It’s still interesting,” Valen contests, watching as Merlins finger drifts over the words. “You’ll have to teach me how to read this.”

Merlin scrunches her nose again. “The language is pretty dead, Val. I think you’ll only find Celestials who speak it fluently, nowadays.”

“So? If it’s spoken by Celestials, I’m sure it’s gorgeous. And mysterious. All the more reason to learn it.”

Merlin scoffs. “If you received a love letter written in the old, dead language, would you actually go on a real life date with the sender?”

“A date? I’d bed them on the spot,” Valen jokes, and Merlin throws her head back and cackles.

“Gross, ugh.” She sneers, giggling. Valen grins.

“Thousands of years old, and you still have the humour of a teenager.”

“Shut up,” she huffs, lightly punching him in the shoulder, only for her eye to immediately widen in concern.

“Ah, shit, that didn’t hurt did it? You’re hurt, I shouldn’t be jostling you around.”

“Merlin, babe, do you really think you can push me around?”

“You underestimate me! I could totally beat you up.”

“Mhmm,” Valen chuckles, taking another sip of his drink. Merlin gives him a wry smile.

“Seriously, though, you okay?”

Valen pauses a moment, taking stock of himself. Yes, his ankle still aches, but the spinning pain in his head has thankfully receded. The exhaustion still runs deep in his bones, however; he thinks if Merlin asked him to stand up, he’s simply collapse.

“I’m alright, all things considered,” he settles on, “but tired. Exhausted.”

“Hey, bright idea here! Maybe you should go to bed!”

“A genius, you are.”

“They don’t call me Merlin for nothin’.”

He chuckles. “It’s nice here. I don’t get much time to relax. And the sun’s only just setting,” he waves a hand towards the window, bathed in pinks and oranges, “let me have an hour, at least.”

“Fine,” Merlin conceded, resting her head on the arm of his chair. Dutifully, Valen proceeds to use her head as an armrest. She huffs in amusement.

They stay like that for a few minutes, Merlin lazily flipping through the book, pausing every time Valen leans closer to inspect a print. Eventually, she complains about her neck, and Valen lets up to allow her a slightly more comfortable position.

“I don’t know how to teach languages,” Merlin says suddenly, startling Valen out of his concentration, “but I think, with Hammie’s help, I could teach you a couple phrases and see where it goes from there?”

Valen blinks in surprise. “You don’t have to do that, Merlin.”

She shrugs. “I want to. Gives me something to do. If you want to, of course.”

Valen pauses, thinks it over, takes another long sip of his drink.

“…sure. We’ll see where it goes.”

Merlin nods, and flips the book closed.

“but if I’m a bullshit student, you can’t be mad at me.”

“I’ll never believe you are,” Merlin sniffs, scooping the book up and standing with a grunt. “Deep down, you’re a nerd like the rest of us, Mr. Playboy Solitaire.”

[nexility-sims]

𝐍𝐎. 𝟑   ❛ 𝐡𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭 ❜   |   NAKAWE, 2023

❧  𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲  /  𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠  /  𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬  /  𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭.

   ❛  Karolina Teague was hardly famous. Her name carried a certain heft among culture critics whose heyday had passed, but she liked the anonymity that came with being washed up. All of her favorite people were has-beens, after all, and she wasn’t ashamed to spend her time reminiscing about days past with them or anyone else who would listen. Today, she welcomed a whole crew of listeners into her Nakawe home—a film crew to be exact, led by a director-producer duo who had known her name well before a previous interviewee mentioned it to them. She wouldn’t be the star of their documentary, but they believed from its inception that the story wouldn’t be complete without her thoughts.

❧ honestly very proud of the scrapbooking !!!! this is basically just shameless exposition, but i am convinced i picked a creative vehicle for it :^) i watched that 90s docuseries on hulu a year ago and this specific story post was born fjdhjf anyway, canonically, no one would be writing or printing in script like that but i am simply NOT that committed to my worldbuilding sdkjfsf consider this whole thing an english language reimagining (^:

𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐝 & 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 ↓

Karolina took them on a tour of her colorful seaside house, one concluding in a room already set up for their perusal. It was the archive, she explained. This was what they came for; her recollections were valuable, but she had so much more than her own memories. Photographs waited on the tables, and an old television screen teased some scene from exclusive VHS tapes. Karolina plopped down onto a sofa and gestured widely, saying, “Have a look. I’m ready when you are.” 

The director, a woman named Ildaria, picked up a photograph. 

“Can you tell us about her?” 

Karolina beckoned for the photo, and Ildaria walked over to hand it to her. For a moment, she peered at it, keeping everyone in suspense. Finally, she replied, “Sure. What’s she going to do, sue me?”

“Maybe,” a cameraman elsewhere in the room snorted.

“I’ll take the risk,” Karolina laughed. “Look, I don’t know Princess Leonor, but I met her plenty of times. She was at The Den at least half the nights in 1991, for sure. Probably into 1992, but I didn’t really keep track of her comings and goings. Definitely not after 1993.”

The producer, Eilo, held up another photograph. “What’s the story here?” he asked.

Karolina reached for it. Unlike the other photo, this one was a proper candid. There were several people in the frame, but Leonor was at the center, kneeling by a table with her hand draped across Renzo’s thigh as he held her head in his palm and said something beyond the capture of still photography.

“It wasn’t anything formal,” Karolina explained. “Renzo didn’t date anyone in those days, and I don’t think she did either. They liked each other. It was mutual fascination with zero understanding, is how I saw it. They hung out—liked each other’s company. Hot and fast, burned out quick, that’s what it looked like.” She shrugged. “That was Renzo.” 

“And Leonor?” Ildaria asked, having sat down nearby. 

“Like I said,” Karolina began. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “I didn't know her. Seemed like a cool girl. I’m older, mind you. I think she wanted to get a little wild and try new things—this is off the record—and The Den was for her what it was for everyone. You could kick your shoes off. Scream along to your buddy’s new song, have a movie star tell you his woes while he pours your drink, get high in the dressing room and probably be fine—” 

“Did she do that?” Ildaria’s eyes were wide.

Karolina cleared her throat. “No, of course not. Not everyone did! Enough, sure. We all know the quote-unquote horror stories.”

The crew listened, rapt, having stopped flipping through albums and poking around the bookcases, eager to hear something explosive. They had set out to make a documentary about a particular time and place. The Den at the turn of the century was their subject. That glorious decade solidified its place in celebrity culture, to say nothing of its place in music history. The princess was just a footnote in that story. Nonetheless, it was a tantalizing footnote. Most people below a certain age were shocked to hear that she hadn’t been a humorless, buttoned-up bureaucrat her entire life. The idea that someone whose day job involved keeping the country afloat may have once been young and reckless intrigued. That she was adjacent to the salacious stories of sex, drugs, and rock and roll they knew better nearly crossed the line into unbelievable. Yet, people in Uspana also knew their royals had been wrapped up in the glamor of celebrity for decades. Even now, they continued to rub elbows with rock stars, including the one elder princess who was herself a music star. 

“She’s a different person now, clearly,” Karolina continued. She spoke tentatively still but nonetheless addressed what everyone wanted to know. “But, for a time, she was at The Den with everyone else, drinking too much and carrying around a pharmacy in whatever cute purse you had that night. You may remember there was a big Reyes death around then. It’s like—when my mother died in 2009, I lost my shit, too.” 

Karolina shrugged again. “She was having fun. I was doing worse, alright, so I only feel judgmental about it insofar as she’d probably be embarrassed if you asked her about any of it today. Royals are supposed to do their sniffing in private, right, not in a bathroom Renzo forgot to hire someone to clean. She was snobby, but my sense was that she liked pretending she wasn’t—roleplay, you know, transgressing or whatever.” 

Someone coughed. The rifling through materials resumed. Ildaria and Eilo shared a look. 

“You haven’t talked to her since ‘92?” Ildaria asked. Eilo, meanwhile, had pulled out his cell phone and was typing with fast fingers. 

Karolina shook her head. “So, she knew I’d asked Renzo to let me collect photos and bring along my Zenith. I got a weird email in 2000 inquiring about them from someone who worked for her.” She grinned, then added as an aside, “Only one recording, by the way. The Den had a strict no video policy.”

“We’d like to see them sometime,” Ildaria responded. 

Karolina nodded, then shook her head and clarified, “Which—my tapes or the email?” 

Eilo answered without looking up, “Both.”

He finished what he was doing after a moment of quiet, then held his phone up for Ildaria and Karolina to see. “Seems like she’s still in touch with people,” he said.

They leaned forward to view the screen while he swiped at it, then Karolina laughed.  “Okay, maybe she just didn’t like me!”  

While they watched, Eilo moved through a hastily thrown together slideshow of the princess with various people Karolina knew well. Some looked like event photos. Others were captured with long lenses—paparazzi shots that made money but didn’t always generate enough interest if the other person was a comparative nobody. Not everyone had evolved in the last thirty years. Plenty of people who visited the bar during the decade of Renzo’s ownership continued to have flourishing careers. They were, at the time, young and beautiful and painfully unprepared for the lifetime of celebrity ahead of them. That’s what they brought to this place more than anything: their pain, which, being creative types, they eagerly spun into something beautiful and private. 

That’s what The Den gave them. These impossibly talented, dedicated stars created fleeting things for each other and no one else. Bands and dance troupes formed. An endless stream of songs and poetry and performance art kept the bar’s little stage occupied nightly for years. Offstage, people with no reason to meet in the real world bonded in this space of both contrived and undeniable intimacy. For some, the reprieve helped them endure the difficulty of becoming that invariably attended a rise in fame. It was detrimental to others. These were the ones who didn’t evolve—people who gave up their relevance to live forever in this meaningless, generative privacy or people who couldn’t make the choice and lost everything in the process. 

Karolina hadn’t evolved, but she hadn’t died or wanted to die either. From her perspective, what people like the princess and even Renzo himself had done wasn’t evolution. It was more like a revelation. People don’t change, she would tell Eilo and Ildaria later, over dinner, when the conversation had moved far away from the royal footnote. She believed people just uncover deeper truths about themselves, knowingly or unknowingly, and those became harder to conceal once they were exposed.

Have you felt that way before? she asked them. Exposed, like when you break your leg so hard the bone snaps right through your skin? They had. The conversation detoured to childhood misadventures, but Karolina had a point to make. She pulled them back. Some people get comfortable with that feeling and learn how to live in it. Other people, you know, they deny and lie and call it growth. That’s my opinion. I’ve seen it—artists are the worst for it, I swear. Artists who don’t want to be artists anymore? Worse than that. 

Can I say you sound bitter? Ildaria laughed. 

Now, Karolina threw her hands up. She exclaimed, joyful, That’s my truth, baby! I took too many bites of the world, and I’ve been disgusted by it ever since. Some people come out of their mamas malcontent.

Later that night, Eilo was exhausted, but Ildaria’s hand hovered over the light switch with uncertainty. She heaved a big, put-upon sigh, then asked, “Is it bad that I want to give Mencia Cipac a call?”

“Give her a call?” Eilo snorted. “Sure, Mencia Cipac, whose number you totally have, definitely won’t ignore your calls because she, for sure, knows who you are and has endless free time to spare.” He sat up straighter, then added, “No more overloading on projects. You promised. Besides, you don’t wanna poke that bear.”

“Not a bear,” Ildaria retorted. “A jaguar. Roar!”

TRANSCRIPT:

KAROLINA | Have a look. I'm ready when you are.

RENZO (O.S.) | Get that thing out of here, Karolina!

ILDARIA | Can you tell us about her?

KAROLINA | Sure. What's she going to do, sue me? CAMERAMAN | Maybe.

KAROLINA | I'll take the risk.

KAROLINA | Look, I don’t know Princess Leonor, but I met her plenty of times. She was at The Den at least half the nights in 1991, for sure. Probably into 1992, but I didn’t really keep track of her comings and goings. Definitely not after 1993

EILO | What's the story here?

KAROLINA | It wasn't anything formal.

KAROLINA | Renzo didn’t date anyone in those days, and I don’t think she did either. They liked each other. It was mutual fascination with zero understanding, is how I saw it. They hung out—liked each other’s company. Hot and fast, burned out quick, that’s what it looked like. That was Renzo.

ILDARIA | And Leonor?

KAROLINA | Like I said, I didn't know her. Seemed like a cool girl. I’m older, mind you. I think she wanted to get a little wild and try new things—this is off the record—and The Den was for her what it was for everyone. You could kick your shoes off. Scream along to your buddy’s new song, have a movie star tell you his woes while he pours your drink, get high in the dressing room and probably be fine—

ILDARIA | Did she do that?

KAROLINA | No, of course not. Not everyone did! Enough, sure. We all know the quote-unquote horror stories.

KAROLINA | She's a different person now, clearly. But, for a time, she was at The Den with everyone else, drinking too much and carrying around a pharmacy in whatever cute purse you had that night. You may remember there was a big Reyes death around then. It’s like—when my mother died in 2009, I lost my shit, too.

KAROLINA | She was having fun. I was doing worse, alright, so I only feel judgmental about it insofar as she’d probably be embarrassed if you asked her about any of it today. Royals are supposed to do their sniffing in private, right, not in a bathroom Renzo forgot to hire someone to clean. She was always a snob, but I my sense was that she liked pretending she wasn’t—roleplay, you know, transgressing or whatever.

ILDARIA | You haven't talked to her since '92?

KAROLINA | So, she knew I’d asked Renzo to let me collect photos and bring along my Zenith. I got a weird email in 2000 inquiring about them from someone who worked for her. Only one recording, by the way. The Den had a strict no video policy.

ILDARIA | We'd like to see them sometime.

KAROLINA | Which—my tapes or the email?

EILO | Both.

EILO | Seems like she's still in touch with people. KAROLINA | Okay, maybe she just didn’t like me!

ILDARIA | Is it bad that I want to give Mencia Cipac a call?

EILO | Give her a call?

EILO | Sure, Mencia Cipac, whose number you totally have, definitely won’t ignore your calls because she, for sure, knows who you are and has endless free time to spare.

EILO | No more overloading on projects. You promised. Besides, you don’t wanna poke that bear.

ILDARIA | Not a bear. A jaguar. Roar!

[conversationswiththemoon]

Recently in my journal...

So I decided that I wanted to start posting here about more than just fandom. I want to talk a bit about some of my special interests, be it watercolor, fountain pens, or plants that were raised to grow in a rainforest and not my bedroom, but I'm valiantly trying anyway... :) First up: my journal. I've always kept a journal since I was young. I had an LJ during its heyday, and largely fell off of journaling after LJ's (mostly) demise. I picked it up again during the pandemic, and I fill a new journal every 2-3 months now. I even wrote an article that was published in Enchanted Living Magazine (formerly Faerie Magazine)! Anyway, here are some of my recent spreads:

[with-my-calamitous-love]

A DWINDLING, MERCURIAL HIGH

odasaku x f! reader

long fic, angst, brief smut, themes of abusive marriage/family poverty, cheating, pregnancy

a/n: i had to split this into two parts! it was getting so long but i wanna get this out now. part two is in the works <3

inspired by illicit affairs

you were 18 when you met odasaku, and 18 when you were forced apart.

in the bustling city of yokohama, it was often hard to find serenity.

it often felt like the city’s people never truly rested. they tore through the streets like a bullet through paper. always a place to go. always an important job to make little money at, always a date for a failing relationship, always somewhere to be and somewhere to go. no matter where you drove, walk or ran to, there was almost never a place that felt calm. not boring, as others would call it. calm. like a checkpoint just for you. so when you did find those hidden caverns, forgotten by the world to busy to pay attention, you savoured it.

you thought of it like your superpower. being able to scope out the places of sweet refuge.

the hidden away, small coffee shop covered by graffiti- small you called cozy and graffiti you called art- was rourou cafe. you knew the owners well. it seemed only you knew to order the green curry because it tasted the best with the jasmine rice they always served fresh. it didn’t taste like the pompous food they served only to the finest, with refined flavours and an astonishingly large bill that always managed to ruin a meal. it had the aroma of comfort, and the flavour of home.

kogaya park was a sight for sore eyes on your long walk home. in its heyday, it seemed to be the only right place for a romantic confession. now, you see couples lose their love like the trees lose their leaves to the enemy we call time. you met an old man there once. he was blind, yet saw the world better than anyone you had ever known. “[y/n],” he spoke in slow breaths like the sun rising over the land before anyone had awoke in its grace. “age is not a number. age is how many times you’ve felt the suns warmth. age is how many times you’ve heard a beautiful song. age is how many times your feet have carried on and moved you forward. when i die, that is what i’ll remember.” you knew he was a man who bared stories like they were his clothes. this park was the only place where the warmth of the sun remained uncovered, the only place he could slow down and feel. you felt that too.

your favourite place, if you could truly choose, had to have been the aishi library.

part of it was that you worked there, and so loving it made your mundane tasks easier. but you were by no means forcing yourself to love it. it seemed everyone who walked in and out were much like you- people who longed for a quiet life. while you spent your hours of the day sorting books into shelves and keeping the place clean, after hours was the true beauty of it all. you’d bury yourself in the stories, pages that opened a gateway to different worlds. relationships that lasted, lives that were fair, and endings that truly mattered. those pages were your true home. fantasies are much nicer than reality, anyway.

perhaps the reason not everyone found escapes as easy as you was because they never needed to.

ever since you were young, you were always forced to search for something more pleasant. you were someones daughter, and that meant helping with dinner and hoping that the sound of chopped vegetables and boiling water could overpower the sounds of your parents falling apart in the other room. being someones daughter meant trying to heal your mothers trauma while she hid away in the closet, scared to come out and look for you knowing he might be there too. being someones daughter meant forgiving your father over and over again. not because you truly forgave him, but because you didn’t want to find out what would happen if he knew that.

your father was a dangerous man. one who owed debts to unsavoury people. people you had only read about in books. people you would soon come to know all too well.

as the days passed on, you grew more and more reliant on that little library. winter soon came, and the familiar faces you knew slowly began to phase out. people left to be somewhere warmer, and you knew that longing for warmth better than anyone else. you stayed focus on the task in front of you, arranging a pile of books back into their rightful homes.

ring!

the front door bell announces that someone has walked inside. in your peripheral, you see him- a young man you presume- enter the library and scan his surroundings. you look over your shoulder. indeed you were right, a young man you had never seen before. soft, reddish brown hair framing his strong jawline with eyes like the ocean to match. he dressed well, you noticed as a tinge of blush blooms on your cheeks.

he notices you too, and smiles.

you immediately turn back to your books.

all is still for a moment. he walks around for a bit, examining his choices of stories to read. he carries a pen and paper by his hip, as if ready to note the anecdotes of life at a moments notice. he must have been writer. or maybe you were thinking of him a little too much.

“excuse me, ma’am. do you have a book you’d recommend?”

wow. you thought. his voice was deep but honeyed. you turn to face him, as he gets a good look at you without your nose stuck in a book.

wow. he thinks as well upon seeing you.

“follow me.”

you take him to your favourite section, the fantasy novels. the stories that made real life seem like a poorly written, unfinished drama. “any one of these here are beautiful reads, i would know.”

you pulled out a velvety green book from the bottom shelf. “but if i had to recommend, i’d start here.” you handed the book over to him like it were a prized possession.

“the cave of two lovers?” he asked, curious blue eyes scanning the treasure you had gifted him.

“the story of oma and shu, two lovers from enemy villages who-‘’ you began to ramble. “oh i wouldn’t want to spoil it!”

he smiled again. “i’ll have to give it a try, then.”

you had grown terribly fond of your new friend, odasaku. he’d make sure to come in once a week at least to tell you his thoughts on your recommendations. the setting sun by osamu dazai was a riveting read, one that he’d lazily get back into while eating the green curry you let him in on. the tears of the kingdom, the story of a princess and her knight torn apart by evil was the book he relaxed into while at kogaya park. he even spent a day reading his favourite verses to a kind old man who reminded odasaku of himself. he absolutely adored the cave of two lovers, but thought that the avatar’s love- it’s sequel- deserved a better ending. he felt as though zuko and katara would have been a much better fit.

“i’m glad you’re enjoying youself.” you hummed while you sorted away more books. odasaku had taken it upon himself to help you with this task, reaching the taller shelves you couldn’t get to- much to your dismay. and he insisted he didn’t mind, though he was embarrassed to admit he did it simply to he around you more. everytime he’d reach over you, you were gifted the scent of his cologne and the sight of him. you could spend the rest of your life putting books away with him.

“you have great taste. i’m happy to come here.” odasaku paused in his tasks to admire your rhythm. every now and then you’d pick up one of your precious books, flip through the pages before sorting it alphabetically. sometimes you had to run and grab tape or pen, but it didn’t matter how far those were- you knew the library like the back of your hand. he knew you spent a lot of time here and hoped he wasn’t intruding.

“i’m happy you like my recommendations. i don’t always like to share my favourites.” you hum, now facing him and giving him your attention. “the people who come here don’t usually care about what i think.”

“well, i do.” he reassures you, his lips forming into a smile that could light up the world. “but i actually have a recommendation for you.”

“oh?”

“i recommend..” he placed down the book he was holding and took your hand in his, rubbing his thumb over yours in small strokes. “that you let me take you out tonight.”

your heart nearly leaped out of your chest.

“we can go to that cafe you introduced me too. i find it lovely, but maybe more so with you there, [y/n.]” the way he said your name made you melt, like molten honey dripping from his lips. each syllable of your name sounded like poetry as soon as he said it.

“i’d love that.” he took your hand and brought it to his face, pressing a kiss to your wrist. his blue eyes didn’t blink once as he stared at you. he had feelings and knew you felt them too, and he was taking advantage of that now.

in hindsight, you wished he would have just pressed his lips to yours and made you his right then and there. because life gives you no warning when it changes, and that night it was all about it change.

as soon as the door to your house swung open, the feeling of uneasiness rushed at you. something screamed wrong, and you were about to find out why. you followed the sounds of anguish to your living room, finding your mom on the couch. her head was buried in her hands wrinkled with guilt and age. you were used to the sight of her crying, but never without reason.

seated across from her was a man you had never seen before. dressed in a black suit with hair like midnight, tied in a neat ponytail. his white gloved hands sat orderly in his lap, a disturbingly calm contrast to your mother in distress.

“mom, whats going on?” you cautioned as you sat down next to her weeping form. she slowly removed her hands shielding her face, turning to you. her eyes screamed pity.

“[y/n], we h-have a visitor. this man is ogai mori, and well… he’s your fathers boss.”

mori smiled, his eyes piercing through your soul and screaming nothing but bad news. “it’s very nice to meet you ms. [l/n], i’ve head very good things.” his words seemed nice on paper, but his tone spewed venom.

“ms. [l/n], i’m sure your aware that your father owes me quite a bit. your family is also struggling to stay afloat right now.. i’ve come here to tell you that that will no longer be an issue for you.” he smiled, but hie eyes remained sinister.

you looked to your mother desperately for answers. how could your debt have been solved so easily? why was she crying if all your problems had supposedly been solved?

“ms. [l/n], kindly lend me your hand.”

hesitantly, you reached out your hand- the same hand that has previously been blessed by odasaku mere hours before. his slender and much larger fingers grasped your palm as he slid a silver ring onto your finger.

you froze. cold sweat dripped down your forehead at the sight. you jerked back, staring down at the ring mori had forced on you.

no. no. no. no. no. no. NO.

“what the fuck is this supposed to mean?!” you cried, knowing what it meant but not wanting to accept it. your mothers tears dried, motioning behind you. it was only then when you noticed the suitcase of clothes- your clothes- packed and ready. your mother looked down. she looked ashamed.

“ms. [l/n], don’t be startled. we have plenty to do together, afterall.”

meanwhile, odasaku sat and waited patiently at rourou cafe. he was deep in thought, worry and insecurity rattling in his shaky hands. everything seemed find when he had asked you to this date. maybe his worst fears were true. maybe there was nothing between you after all.

“is [y/n] coming?” the cafe owner asked.

odasaku shook his head.

7 years later.

you had thought that marrying the leader of the port mafia was punishment enough. you cried and cried and cried, mourning what you had lost in the blink of an eye. your husband reminded you that this was the contract that your father signed you off to- now that you two were married, your family could live debt free. but that wasn’t your choice. it was decided for you.

it wasn’t just a marriage where you turned into some pretty housewife- no. mori had taken it upon himself to train you. to turn you into one of his most deadly weapons. you hated it. you hated learning to shoot and to look away as you stole the breath of someones life. but over the years, your heart hardened, and your tears dried. perhaps it would a good thing he had made you this way. now not even he could touch you.

long were the days you read and weeped for the fictional. ougai had promoted you to executive status, a rare feat for someone with no ability. but your skills were exceptional, and only the broken could do such unspeakable work. that had to have been why he broke you in like a god damn shoe, after all.

but no matter how much he forced your heart to fortify, someone stayed in your mind. someone who left his kiss on your now wedded hand.

you had influence within the mafia. as an executive and as ougai’s wife, you knew that you could track down odasaku. you knew that you could have your men summon him into your office with the snap of your fingers. so why didn’t you?

your high heels tapped against the floor as you were just about to turn a corner. you head the voices of some subordinates, mocking your name.

“theres chuuya, the short ginger, kouyou, the hot one, and queen bitch [y/n] mori. what does that make you, just some bandage freak?”

you peered the corner to see two of your subordinates, challenging your fellow-executive dazai. you were always a fond of him, and by the smirk on his face when you turned the corner, he seemed quite fond of you too.

“ah ah ah boys, you’re going to regret what you just said.” he provoked them further. its clear that whatever he was doing he was clearly aware of. he was a demon prodigy- yet he had his fun toying with the minds of others.

“oh yeah? why’s that?” one of the men challenged.

dazai chuckled. “queen bitch, you say?“

“bitch! i bet shes only one of you fancy ass executives because shes married to the boss!”

“ahem.”

dazai chuckled and backed up, giving you room to enter the scene. the two boys blood ran cold at your sight.

you slammed the particularly loud one into the wall, pressing your arm up against his chest. the other bolted in the opposite direction.

“y-y-[y/n]! i didnt mean any of that! we were just j-joking around..”

“you don’t get to address me by my name.” your voice was cold as ice. no one had called you by your name in years. no one you would ever let.

your knee flew up, hitting him right in the crotch. you released him from the wall and watched as he wailed, grabbing the sensitive area in pain. you began to walk away, dazai following shortly after you.

“what are you doing? you’re an executive, act like it.” you spewed. dazai sighed like a little boy.

“well, i only stepped in to investigate all the things they said about you! so really, you should be thanking me.” you chuckled; childlike stupidity was always funny.

later that evening, you found yourself desperately needing a drink. the mafia was fond of a few different bars in the surrounding area, but one you knew of well was lupin. it was a cozy and elegant setting, one that reminded you of your past enough to draw you in but not too much that it made you want to burn it down. 

you ordered a glass of white wine, drinking it down as though you never used to hate the taste of alcohol. so far, you’ve managed to shut down every piece of your past. this was you now. you couldn’t escape anymore, you had become the thing you hid away from all those years ago. and you had no choice but to move forward.

“whiskey, neat.”

the man next to you ordered. his voice was comforting, but you knew not to be lured in. only the mafia came to this bar, and that meant everyone waa bad news.

but, you couldn’t resist tilting your head and hearing him speak. he was a deep, husky baritone, one that made you wonder who’s lips it came from. you looked down at your wine glass and lightly spun it, watching the liquid as it sloshed! around the cup in boredom.

you wondered what your name would sound like in his voice.

“[y/n]?”

you chuckled to yourself, knowing your imagination called out to you in delusion.

that was, until the voice called out again.

“[y/n]…” 

you finally looked over, and there he was.

age had done odasaku justice. he looked stronger and adjusted, like his life had sculpted him into a beautiful man. those eyes stayed the same. the ones you had dreamed about for years.

your lips stayed agape. his blue eyes examined the sight in front of him. he noticed you changed as well. your sweet blush, gentle hands, and forgiving eyes had been buried away. you seemed older, like life forced you into a corner you fought back to. but you were still fucking beautiful.

“i-i, wow, odasaku. i mean. you look great.” you spoke as if you slapped the few words in english you learned when you were 5.

he was forgiving, and chuckled at your demeanour. “is that your way of making it up to me?” he teased.

“no! god no! i- wow. i mean, what are you doing here?” you questioned. you had to admit that the subtle reference to the past caused you a tinge of pain. but all you could do is be thankful that he was actually here, alive and well in front of you.

“i could ask the same about you.. though, since we’re both here, we can assume one thing.” odasaku’s eyes never lingered off of you, as if he wasn’t trying to lose the image of you in his mind.

“i see… i guess life forced you into this as well.” you spoke before taking a deep sip of your wine.

“i guess so. but i never stopped thinking of you.” there it was. odasaku’s warmth, his radiance like the sun that kept you warm throughout the harshest 7 year winter you had endured. you wanted to bathe in it forever. he placed his hand on your thigh, moving closer to you. but something caught his eye.

“you’re married?” he asked, tone changing to confused as he looked down at your silver ring. he remembered that hand, the one he wished he could hold the rest of his life.

to be honest, you had completely forgotten about that as soon as you saw odasaku. “oh!” you took your hand and studied the ring. “yes, i’m married to ougai.” that last part of your sentence fell flat with resentment.

this was the moment odasaku had realized how much you’ve changed. how could someone as sweet as you marry that monster? but oda knew to act better than he felt.

“i see..” he calmly replied, removing his hand from your thigh and finishing his whiskey. you panicked, knowing that look of disappointment all too well. you had seen it on many men before you, but his seemed more worried than anything.

“i’m so sorry if i made you think..” you lied through your teeth, trying to comfort the man in front of you.

“its okay, [y/n]. a beautiful woman like you.. it was bound to happen.” he reassured you, knowing that the rose of love had its thorns.

the way he said your name broke down every wall inside your head. god, how you wanted to tell him the truth of your marriage. how it hurt knowing he simply thought loved another man. how it hurt he didn’t know that that man was him.

“i’m really glad i ran into you, odasaku.”

“i’m glad to see you, [y/n].”

the rest of the night you spent laughing and chatting like you never had before, taking you back to your secret book club meetings with just him years before. this is what warmth felt like. you hadn’t felt that in years.

it started out with simple, nightly phone calls. you’d call him on your way back home since ougai worked such late nights and often didn’t bother to check on you. oda would. he’d text you to confirm you’d got home and wait up for your goodnight text.

it then evolved into private, clandestine meetings at the bar. you’d meet late into the night, sometimes joining ango and dazai in their chats. odasaku would introduce you as a mere “friend”, though everyone knew that that title felt wrong on many levels. you pretended not notice odasaku take a swig of his drink everytime your husband was brought up in conversation.

but you relearned everything you loved about odasaku. his jokes, his way with words, and how he always managed to make everyone the worst parts of yourself feel like a eulogy. he had filled your empty heart with something you longed for. something you hadn’t felt from your parents in years, something your husband had never given you once: love.

you didn’t mean for it to happen. but you were falling back in love with him.

well, its not like you tried to stop it.

and even though odasaku was a man of class, and wanted to respect the vow of marriage, he too could not deny the lingering feelings he had kept like a locket all these years. and it burned inside of him knowing that even though his words were the ones you kept in your heart, at night you laid next to another man. he was the man that held your hand on hard long days, but it was not his ring that wedded you. that even though he loved you more than the air he breathed, you were married to ougai mori.

it wasn’t him. it wasn’t him. but it should have been. he thinks every time he sees that fucking ring on your finger.

odasaku could be content knowing that at least, you were loved by another man. but you weren’t. the more he learned about your marriage, the harder it became to act better than he felt. he wanted to respect that you were a wife, someone else’s wife, but that was some made up vow on a sheet of paper somewhere. your heart belonged to him.

odasaku had taken you to the rooftop of his apartment. it was late at night, so late that you thought even the stars had longed to go to sleep. you knew ougai would begin to grow suspicious, but right now your fear was overpowered by the man beside you.

he held you close with a firm arm wrapped around your waist, securing you to your rightful place by his side. your eyes watched as the stars blanketed the night sky in a bright hue that stretched for infinity, singing a choir of celestial beauty that only those fortunate enough could see each night. you watched the sky, and oda watched you.

all these years and you still looked so fucking beautiful. bathed in the moonlight, you heart was beating like it were about to burst. you turned to face him, placing your hands on his chest and allowing yourself to be enveloped by his scent. he hummed in response, hands keeping a firm grip on your waist as if you would be pulled away from him at any second.

you never wanted to kiss someone more desperately than now.

“i love you.” you whispered, finally allowing your heart to breath. for what felt like the first time in 7 years, you spoke the truth.

odasaku let his forehead drop, pressing it against yours. his eyes closed, hands never wavering from off your body. he felt like you lifted bricks off of his back, confirming that you had felt the same for him all these years. but there was just one problem.

“you’re married, [y/n].” he wanted to scream. scream how it was unfair, scream how you should be married to him instead. but his lips could only muster our the first half of the truth. he had to put you first, always.

you scoffed. “do you really care?”

that right there, was all he needed. “no.”

he pressed his lips to yours with passionate fervour, like he were to die without feeling your kiss. you wasted no time returning the favour, pouring every ounce of your love for him. odasaku kissed you like he hopelessly, desperately needed you- every bit of you. probably because he did.

you desperately grasped his shoulders as he used one hand to cup your face, the other remaining diligently on your waist. you were pushing him past his limits. your beautiful eyes, waist shaped like it was just for him, and a soul that could dare any man to fall in love with you.

you couldn’t stop kissing, even when both your lungs scratched for air. you only pulled apart to look into his eyes once more before going back in, pressing your lips to his like he was your lifebuoy. you needed to feel him, all of him. you needed his love. you were deprived of it for years and subjected to a hell without it. but he was here now, and god damn it if you weren’t going to feel all of him. your husband waited for you in a barren, cold apartment, but the love of your life kissed you under the warm gaze of the heavens.

you were what he needed. he was what you needed. this is what love felt like.

you were everything he wanted love to be, and he wasn’t going to stop at just your lips.

for a man so gentle, sweet and loving, you had never expected him to be this way in bed.

“odasaku!” you moaned out of breath, barely being able to speak his full name. he thrusted his thick, throbbing cock into your pussy. he groaned, relishing in the feeling of your tight walls clenching around him. he pinned your hands above your head, while his free hand rubbed circles on your throbbing clit. he fucked you like he was going to lose. he needed to feel you, all of you.

the sounds of skin slapping echoed throughout the room. with a sharp thrust, he buried himself deep inside your willing body, a guttural groan of pleasure escaping his lips. “this is where you belong. not with him, with me.” he reassured you as he pressed his lips to your already hickey-infested neck. he was going to send you home with his marks. he was going to make sure your piece of shit husband knew who you really loved you. he might have been married to you, but odasaku was the one who fucking you now.

he set a relentless pace, pounding into you with ruthless abandon as he chased your pleasure. he wanted you to forget ever feeling unloved, only being able to think of the way his cock fucked you. the sound of flesh slapping against flesh filled the air, and by the end of the night you would only be able to remember his name.

he continued to pound into your pussy. your desperate moans and cries of pleasure fuelled his relentless pace. he reveled in the feeling of your tight heat enveloping his throbbing cock, the sensation almost enough to make him lose control. he let out a deep moan as he leaned down, his lips and teeth hungry against your flesh. he sucked and nipped at the soft skin of your breasts, determined to leave his mark - a possessive display that would show the world that you belonged to him and him alone.

“f-fuck! fuck oda… fuck please.. i need you.” you desperately cried out to him as you felt your core begin to slowly unravel itself. you were coming undone from underneath him. gripping your hips firmly, he resumed his relentless pace, his thick shaft plunging into your body over and over. the sound of your shared moans and the slap of skin on skin filled the air as he chased your release, intent on thoroughly ruining you for anyone else.

“i’m gonna cum.. fuck please…” you cried out. he kissed your chin as he felt himself come close as well. his vision swam with stars, his only mission now to plant himself so deep inside of you your husband couldn’t even think of touching you. he clutched your hips with bruising force, driving himself in as deep as he could go. with a few more sharp snaps of his hips, you let out a cry of ecstasy as his release crashed over him and you hot spurts of cum flooding their intimate embrace. he let out a groan as your pussy clenched around him so tight, cumming around his cock desperately. he continued to pump into you slowly, drawing out your orgasm. you were practically seeing stars.

slowly, he pulled out, a trickle of his spent release dripping down your thighs. leaning in, he placed a possessive kiss on the nape of their neck, a satisfied l smile playing on his lips. he removed himself from on top of you and laid down beside you. odasaku pulled the blanket over the two of you, pulling you closer to him and his embrace. he kissed all over your face, making sure that you were okay. you lazily nodded, reassuring him that you simply needed to come back down to earth.

your head fell into the crook of his neck, allowing the sleep to overtake you. for the first time in your life, you laid next to someone who loved. odasaku could sleep soundly, knowing you were safe. knowing you were with him.

“my wife, i was so worried about you the other night. tell me dear, where have you been?”

bullshit. you thought.

ougai had summoned you into his office, a rather rare occurrence considering your relationship. if he wanted to assign you a job, he’d simply call you. when he wanted to see you in person, it was because he needed to see you. as a doctor with extensive knowledge on the human body, ougai knew how ro detect a lie. but you knew how to hide one well.

“i was assisting the black lizard in a raid.” not a complete lie. hirotsu was a personal friend of yours, and often called upon you as backup. he also had a distaste for mori, so he’d have no problem confirming this in your favour.

ougai pressed his lips into a calculated smirk. “i see.” something was up. he was testing you.

“my dear… the mafia speaks of you in such high regard.” he began, turning in his chair and facing the portrait behind him. he had a painting of you made, one that required you to stand in an uncomfortable silk dress that barely fit you properly for hours on end. he didn’t want a wife, he wanted something beautiful he could own.

“they speak of your power and your beauty, your voice and your and your heart. many think of you like a goddess, and their eyes twitch with jealousy upon learning that you are married to me.”

your brows furrowed. “whats your point?”

he stepped up, carefully walking towards you. that wretched smile of his never fell off his lips, and it was anything but comforting. he moved until he was mere inches away from you, leaning in to your ear.

“what would they think if they… knew you were pregnant with another mans child?”

[meggannn]

if you are a famous pizza joint and over the years you cook me several pizzas I fall in love with, and then over time you suddenly rebrand to only make hamburgers, I like hamburgers on occasion, but it’s weird if you still call it a pizza

I didn’t get used to coming to your store for hamburgers. in fact your previous owners established a really good reputation for making pizza and I don’t necessarily believe you can make good hamburgers cause you don’t have the best track record with rebranding to other things. you tried to make conveyor belt sushi that one time and it sent some people to the hospital so I get very nervous when you start experimenting.

then your chefs take to social media and start saying “those old critically acclaimed pizzas of ours that you loved so much always had some bad flavors, so in our new hamburgers, we actually tried hard to make the tomatoes taste good. these hamburgers are the Best We’ve Ever Done, You Should Preorder Our Hamburgers”

you are now boasting about how delicious your patties are. now I tried your sliders one time a few years ago out of boredom and they were fine, it wasn’t really for me, but whatever. and now I notice how the first people in line for your hamburgers today are talking about how they can’t wait to rip off the buns and all the other toppings and lick their patty’s bald head till it says “oooh I never should've left you, vhenan, oooh.” i’m mostly a vegetarian these days anyway. please stop talking about patties. I don’t fucking care you brought over the same plates and wallpaper and fishtank when you redesigned your restaurant. for $60 I want to eat a good pizza. even a pizza-flavored hamburger. is there anything on this menu that will suit me?

then I go online to see if anyone else feels the same nervousness. and I meet several other people who say yeah, this is not pizza, the only good pizza they’ve ever made was back when they made only margherita; some others who say yeah it’s weird, but I like hamburgers so it’s whatever; several other critics are just bigots who stand outside the store lobbing feces at the windows because this store also serves rainbow-colored pizza-hamburgers; and several others who say removing the cheese from the pizza-hamburger isn’t actually that big a deal, and neither is removing the tomatoes, or the bread, or the sauce, because enjoying pizza is about the Experience and the Ambiance, so they’re going to love this hamburger anyway because come on, it’s the pizza joint! the classic pizza joint! don’t you miss eating their classic pizzas?? now I have never straight-up told anyone to not buy the hamburgers, and yet when I or anyone else mentions missing when this place served pizza, I get alluded to as a pizza tourist with intentions on par with the aforementioned poo-slingers.

if I then see reviews have come out with video footage they even the tomatoes, which are a commonly agreed element in both pizza and hamburgers, are no longer is up to the quality of any acceptable hamburger joint much less this pizzeria in its heyday, it’s gonna ruin my appetite for your hamburgers entirely, much less anything else that comes out of that kitchen. that was the ONE connective tissue between pizza and hamburgers that I cared about; the one thing that everyone looks forward to from you, specifically, even. and if some folks say “hey, even if this is a hamburger joint, it’s a bad sign that these tomatoes look like they’ve been dug out of the garbage and cut by a nine-year-old, and I worry because I don’t want to see you on the internet later complaining about food poisoning, god forbid, or worse, telling people that mild food poisoning is part of the experience,” I think it’s baffling that people shoot back with “why don’t you buy the hamburger before judging if it has food poisoning for yourself?” as if you and I don't deserve better for sixty goddamn dollars than to have to guess whether a hamburger with a dead fly in it is going to ruin our weekend.

look, even if I weren’t very bitter about my favorite pizza joint changing, I think that people who like hamburgers also deserve a better foodie experience for their time and money, no matter what it is, and we are lying to ourselves if we say all the basic ingredients of pizza never really mattered and everything was just window dressing for like, all those decorative background plates and wallpaper that one guy designed 20 years ago. that one guy is still arguing with fans of his old pizzeria on twitter ten years after he even left the place, so I don’t really care what he thinks.

this restaurant’s menu items, whether pizza or hamburger, costs $60 and take several dozens of hours to sit at your restaurant and enjoy. now I have signed up for your dinner experience in the past despite my wariness and been proven wrong, because enjoying your enormous, delicious pizza for hours has been a highlight of my food experiences since I even started calling myself an #eater. even if I dislike how you’ve used some anchovies or chicken bbq toppings in the past, I actually enjoyed when you changed my other favorite menu item into tacos earlier, even if the taco’s faces looked kinda funny.

and I’m sure your staff worked very hard on these hamburgers under extreme conditions; maybe you had Jeremy Allen White screaming HANDS HAIRSTYLES in your ear back there for 10+ years, and that sucks. while I have not forgotten that you axed several of your line cooks (who designed the recipes you’re now serving) just before the finish line, I am sympathetic that this is a make-or-break moment for your restaurant. you’ve borrowed too much money from Uncle Jimmy and if this doesn’t work, we might not see you stay open for long. I do not want that to happen.

but i do not owe this place my patronage just because they still call themselves a pizza joint. they changed too many menu items. I am no longer their ideal clientele. I don’t have all the time and money in the world to waste on hamburgers I know will make me unhappy and I’m tired of being alluded to as a “tourist” for sharing my concerns about the future of one of my favorite restaurants.

so with a very heavy heart, I realized that I’ve kind of... outgrown this pizza-hamburger joint. I don’t care if the hamburger patty gets redeemed anymore. just across the street, supergiant’s gyro truck is putting out ten times the quality that I see from your hamburgers while also providing excellent weekly menu changes based on customer feedback, and metaphor refantazio’s pizzeria is just standing there as a quiet restaurant of the year contender, and oh hey, is lego horizon adventures opening next month? and literally any of those are looking like a wonderful palate cleanser to all of... this.